At the beginning of the 8th
century, Leo III, emperor of the Eastern Roman empire, attacked the use of images as aids
in worship. As such, he was the first leader of the iconoclasts (image breakers). Statues
and icons of Jesus, Mary, and various other holy men and women were being used as aids in
worship. Leo III came into power after a series of military defeats. There was also a
major earthquake at the beginning of his reign. Some scholars have speculated the Leo
launched his attack on the use of images because he felt that these disasters were the
result of God's judgement. Other scholars think that he might have yielded to pressure
from Jews and Muslims who stated that Christians were no longer obeying the commandment
against idolatry. In any case, Leo III and successors for the next century or so fought
against the use of images in worship. In 753, Constantine V, Leo's son, called a synod at
which a gathering of 338 bishops produced the statement below:

The Synod of Constantinople (Hiera, 753 AD)

When, however, they are blamed for undertaking to depict the divine nature of Christ,
which should not be depicted, they take refuge in the excuse: We represent only the flesh
of Christ which we have seen and handled. But that is a Nestorian error. For it should be
considered that that flesh was also the flesh of God the Word, without any separation,
perfectly assumed by the divine nature and made wholly divine. How could it now be
separated and represented apart? So is it with the human soul of Christ which mediates
between the Godhead of the Son and the dullness of the flesh. As the human flesh is at the
same time flesh of God the Word, so is the human soul also soul of God the Word, and both
at the same time, the soul being deified as well as the body, and the Godhead remained
undivided even in the separation of the soul from the body in his voluntary passion. For
where the soul of Christ is, there is also his Godhead; and where the body of Christ is,
there too is his Godhead. If then in his passion the divinity remained inseparable from
these, how do the fools venture to separate the flesh from the Godhead, and represent it
by itself as the image of a mere man? They fall into the abyss of impiety, since they
separate the flesh from the Godhead, ascribe to it a subsistence of its own, a personality
of its own, which they depict, and thus introduce a fourth person into the Trinity.
Moreover, they represent as not being made divine, that which has been made divine by
being assumed by the Godhead. Whoever, then, makes an image of Christ, either depicts the
Godhead which cannot be depicted, and mingles it with the manhood (like the Monophysites),
or he represents the body of Christ as not made divine and separate and as a person apart,
like the Nestorians.

The only admissible figure of the humanity of Christ, however, is bread and wine in the
holy Supper. This and no other form, this and no other type, has he chosen to represent
his incarnation . . .

Thirty-five years later, Irene, the regent for Constantine VI, called another council
at which 350 bishops repudiated the decision documented above. The result of their
deliberations is given below:

Council of Nicaea (7th Ecumenical, 787 AD)

To make our confession short, we keep unchanged all the ecclesiastical traditions
handed down to us, whether in writing or verbally, one of which is the making of pictorial
representations, agreeable to the history of the preaching of the Gospel, a tradition
useful in many respects, but especially in this, that so the incarnation of the Word of
God is shown forth as real and not merely fantastic, for these have mutual indications and
without doubt have also mutual significations.

We, therefore, following the royal pathway and the divinely inspired authority of our
Holy Fathers and the traditions of the Catholic Church (for, as we all knoweth Holy Spirit
indwells her), define with all certitude and accuracy that just as the figure of the
precious and life-giving Cross, so also the venerable and holy images, as well in painting
and mosaic as of other fit materials, should be set forth in the holy churches of God, and
on the sacred vessels and on the vestments and on hangings and in pictures both in houses
and by the wayside, to wit, the figure of our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ, of our
spotless Lady, the Mother of God, of the honourable Angels, of all Saints and of all pious
people. For by so much more frequently as they are seen in artistic representation, by so
much more readily are men lifted up to the memory of their prototypes, and to a longing
after them; and to these should be given due salutation and honorable reverence not indeed
that true worship of faith which pertains alone to the divine nature; but to these, as to
the figure of the precious and life-giving Cross and to the Book of the Gospels and to the
other holy objects, incense and lights may be offered according to ancient pious custom.
For the honor which is paid to the image passes on to that which the image represents, and
he who reveres the image reveres in it the subject represented . . .

I have included these two documents to show that the debate over the use of images in
worship is not new; that it is, in fact, part of an ongoing debate over what is to be
worshipped. The sources which I have examined (these are, admittedly, works by Protestant
authors), indicated that there were various branches of the church which opposed or
supported the iconoclast position to varying degrees, and that the documents produced by
the iconoclasts of the 8th and 9th centuries were the basis of the position taken by the
reformers in the 16th century.